Disjointed Thoughts of a College Student Who Recently Ran into a Tree

I had every intention of writing you a totally upbeat post this week. It's been a good week. I've made good food (I made a keish without a recipe, which, really, is as far i aspire in culinary genius anyway), I did well on a test, I talked to people, joined a study group, and went to a terrific lecture. But I got home today and I felt bleh. My body had, apparently, decided that it was done with me.

So I finished Bring Me a Unicorn, which happily has nothing to do with unicorns. I mad myself hash browns and eggs, which were surprisingly delicious. I went to see if the vegetation stand was open, because I felt a desperate urging to eat fruit. Unfortunately it wasn't, and my urging did not extend as far as the grocery store. So I ate my roommate's cantaloupe, because I'm a bad person.

My throat still hurts. I think this has to do with running into a tree yesterday. I believe I swallowed some of its leaves. Nobody believes me. Which is weird, because how is this any less ridiculous than trying to make waffles with an actual iron? This is college. Weird and ridiculous things just happen.

I should be writing an essay right now on Lady Gaga and hegemony. But when I called my mom (somewhere in between the hash browns and the west wing episode i didn't mention because i want you to think i kicked the addiction) she told me to find a good movie, pop some popcorn, make some orange juice and not do any school work tonight. I am nothing if not obedient so I'm neglecting my essay for the time being.

Sorry Lady Gaga. You'll have to wait on my analysis for another day.

When I first got to college I was so homesick it was gut wrenching. Now it's softer. It crawls in bed next to me at midnight and snuggles up to my spine. It makes me want the stretch of road by my old elementary school, the faded gold couch in my living room, and the cast iron pans always on my stove. It's a quiet ach, like growing pains.

I'm going to stop now. I actually do have things I was going to write about on this week's post. I was going to write about how I thought people who lived thousands of years ago would feel, watching me write essays on them. Or my testing center fiasco. I was going to review a book and start a college food study guide. I still might. Tomorrow is looking like a long day.

But for tonight, I'll just say good night.

Moanings and Groanings

WARNING: Look at the title. Good, now you've been warned.

Everyone within a hundred mile radius of me is going to a football game tonight. I see them streaming under my window, a stream of blue shirts. Everyone except one of me and one of my roommates. She is sleeping in the bunk above me right now, utterly exhausted after six and a half hours of serving up pizza. I'm sitting at my desk and not doing homework, going shopping, or doing laundry.

I remember one of my religion teachers telling me once that not a whole lot changes after you die. You don't magically become a good person, strap on angel wings, skim around the stars singing praises. The idea is to be a good person when you go. But somehow we think that big changes in life (like, for example, life ending) make us different. We're usually waiting for them to fix everything.

I hadn't ever really thought about what I would be like after death before. I'm a teenager. I still think I'm invincible. But I do remember thinking that when I got to college everything would magically right itself. In my head there was a whole group of people waiting for me. People who were like me, but not so much like me that it was annoying. People I could call up at any time and say, Hey, I'm bored. People who were cool but not too cool to be my friends.

Kindred spirits is the term. I thought there would be seven or eight soul siblings just waiting on my front porch when I turned up with my suitcases. Unfortunately, as it turns out, I don't have a front porch and I seem to have missed the kindred spirit opening social. Everyone told me I would make life long friends in college, and I kind of feel like I'm missing the boat.

How do you catch a boat? Do you hail it like a cab? I have never successfully hailed a cab. (has anyone else ever noticed how many double letters there are in successfully? it's really fun to type.)

I know it's only three weeks in, and my parents and various other adult relatives assure me that there are lots of other people just like me. We're all insecure teenagers, sitting in our apartments, craving love and affection, doing homework and watching Doctor Who. And while I'm sure they're right (except for tonight when, as previously stated, everyone and their goldfish is going to the big game) I don't find it very comforting. If everyone is just like me then we'll never get anywhere.

Besides, that isn't what I see outside my window. People are jogging together, going to lakes together, getting in their badly parked cars and turning the ignition with a purpose together. They go to each other's apartments and magically have each other's phone number.

That's the part that really confuses me. Where, when, and how are these people getting each other's numbers? It's like it all happens under the table, some black market trade I know nothing about. I turn my back and they all pull out their phones.

I was never popular. I never had a ton of friends. I was that girl everyone waved to in the hall, but no one ever thought of when they were thinking of doing something. And that was fine. I always had a few great friends, the kind that always make things better. I'm turning into that girl again--the wave in the hall girl who no one dislikes, but no one particularly likes either. Except this time I'm missing my soul siblings.

What I really would like is a Laurie. I want a best guy friend/older brother. I never had a big brother and I think it's about time I got one. The whole (failed) romantic line of that Little Woman's story isn't what interests me right now. I want a buddy.

And I have no idea how to get one. It doesn't seem to be the kind of thing you put an add in the paper about (laurie wanted. must be funny, fun, mildly annoying, smart (preferably good at explaining astronomy), and extremely comforting. bow tie optional).

...Now I really want to put an add in the paper.

I'm so much cooler in my head. Really.

OK, pity party over. Thanks for listening. Tune in next week.

What We Like to Call College Cliches

I have to tell you about this because it made me laugh.

A few nights ago I was sitting in my room skyping with my parents. One of my roommates, Kelsey, was there too, doing homework and being generally productive. It was actually dark outside, so it had to be pretty late when we heard this thud against our window.

Kels and me gave each other a look and I said to my parents, "Wait a second, I think someone just through a rock at our window or something."

We headed over to the window and there were six guys standing there. I didn't recognize any of them. They stood there staring at up us and we stared back down at them.

"You have the wrong room, don't you?" I asked.

They all gave vague indications of assent. Then one of them said, "Do you want some black licorice?" That's what they'd been throwing at our window.

"No thanks."

They walked away and we shut our window, looked at each other, and cracked up.

There are just some classic scenes that seem to linger in our cultural and romantic imaginations. Often they become cliches.

Ah, college. We have our own set of cliches.

Failures of Numerous Kinds and Snobbery

I have skin peeling off the ends of my fingers. Little, white, dead cells clinging in interesting formations where the tips meet my nails. I keep forgetting to buy lotion.

I'm not very good at this living on my own thing yet.

Like Friday night, when I decided it was time to do laundry. It was the mounding bag of dirty clothes and the empty hangers in my closet that gave it away. So I grabbed the bag (i felt like santa, which is an unusual sensation for me), grabbed the laundry thing I spent six bucks on earlier in the week, grabbed my keys and walked out the door.

It wasn't until I got to the laundromat that I realized that my laundry stuff wasn't actually soap, like I'd thought, but softener. Which, according to my roommate, who I called after I couldn't get a hold of my mom, is not the same thing.

So I took all the clothes out of the washer, reloaded them into my santa bag, and walked back to my apartment to borrow some actual soap. Two hours and $3.50 later I'd walked back to my apartment for the fifth time and had decided that laundry was evil and I wasn't ever going to do it again.

...Some days I feel not very smart.

The thing about dorms is that they're full of people who are not so smart in the exact same way I am. This is a freshman dorm, which means that most of us have never lived away from home for any extended period of time... which makes things interesting. I was just talking to a guy who almost burned down his apartment two times this week. Once this was caused by an unnoticed sticker at the bottom of a frying pan, the other time smoke just started pouring out of his oven, and he had no clue why.

My roommate from last term was met with some feeling of anxiety when she announced to our apartment that she intended to make cheesecake for her friends party, mostly because we'd seen her cook before. I asked her where she got her recipe and she said, "Oh, I don't use recipes, because things always turn out bad when I do. Maybe 'cause I never follow them." I sat there and watched her pour in various mixes, including cheesecake and lemon bars, with healthy doses of whatever else was in the cupboards. It ended up tasting OK, though nothing like cheesecake and she took it to the party (at my other roommates suggestion) calling it German Cheesecake.

Honestly, though, I'm just impressed that any of us are cooking at all.

I'm stuck in a round of the same foods over and over again. My diet thus far has mainly been composed of eggs. Salads. Pasta. Fruit. Sandwiches. Cereal. And much popcorn. I had a break down a few weeks back and my mom looked at me via skype and said, "You need broccoli and you need meat. Go." Variety, apparently, is not my strong point. Also, protein.

I am making bread though, if that garners me any extra culinary points. And so far I have not burned down my apartment or accidentally made German Cheesecake. Though actually, accidentally making cheesecake of any sort seems like it could be indicative of culinary genius, if only it hadn't involved mixes.

Does it make me a food snob that I sort of look down my nose at mixes? And what are the chances of me living through college and preserving that snobbery?

Inner Turmoil and Horses

I have recently made a discovery.

I like horses.

Furthermore, I like riding horses.

I know. It's so cliche. And I spent four years of high school deliberately avoiding, even defying cliches. I didn't go to prom or football games. I had limited interest in boys and next to none in makeup.

But now? I mean, my makeup use is still limited, and I am only cautiously curious about boys. But look at me, I'm baking and riding horses. Me and my little Mormon girl self.

Irony is great in literature, even though most of the time it stinks in real life. But cliches? They stink in the fictional and the un-fictional world.

But here's the thing. I like riding horses. I like feeling tall, because I usual don't. I like being fast, because I'm usual not.

And there is a romanticism to horses. They're tied to knights in shining armor and the Old West. They invoke ancient images, the kind that come with rose colored glasses. So instead of bumping around on the back of a large animal, you're participating in tradition, in the melding of beings, and the planet's pulse.

Oh gosh. I might actually be romantic. The cynic in me is cringing.

It's cliche that I love horses, but is it OK as long as I don't love them because it's cliche?

I've pretty much decided that I don't care. How pathetic would it be if I didn't do things I liked just because they're cliche? So I'm going to keep making bread. And riding horses. Cliches, I defy you by refusing to let you dictate to me. I am not your secretary.

So there.

Parent Poems

Omelet

Mom cracks th egg

The yolk lands with a soft--Bump

Mom wishes

Our backyard was big enough for chickens

Wishes

She did not have to cook this Friday night

She adds cheese

Grated and ribboned

Collecting on the sides of the ancient black pan

Leaking into the eggs

Basil, mushrooms, flavor

At the kitchen table

Dad smiles at Mom

Wishes we were not having eggs and cheese

Again

Says prayer,

Says

If we were starving

Our bellies hanging behind our belts

We would be

Happy

So happy to have this

Mom rolls her eyes

They were teenagers, once

Six weeks of work

Six weeks of Saturdays
that were not my own.
A long red line
down the second-to-last day of the week
on my calendar.

A final armful of leaves
scratching long red lines down my arm
as I dump them into a scratched up red truck.

Sitting in the pickup with my dad
mandatory country music squeaking out of the radio.
The dump smells sweet with decay.
We sweep out the pickup’s bed once more
and leaves fall like a Hawaiian autumn.

Back in my yard standing
with a stocky glass of lemonade in my sticky hand.
We survey our work—
the looming lack of hedge
sunlight pouring through the gaping hole of not-there-ness.

“You know,” says dad
“I don’t think I like it.”

Adjectives, Expectations, and Frozen Yogurt

WARNING: I'm thinking of starting all of my posts with warnings. Anyway, this is extremely long. I hadn't realized how long until I posted it. I could go edit and cut it down... but I've been editing an essay all week, so that's not happening. I would recommend skimming. Or you could just pretend you read it and move on.

Some of you might remember my epiphany in the dandelions that came last year about how all adjectives are relative. (i've since discovered that all words are relative, but this disturbers me less.) You may remember how very annoyed I was to discover that the only way I could define myself was in comparison to other people.... which totally stinks because in comparison it is mandated that someone is the loser. And, of course, that someone is me more than I'd like it to be.

Every time I tell someone I grew up in Hawaii they say, "Why didn't you go to college there?" And I say something like, "I just thought I'd never grow up if I stayed at home." Which is totally true. Like, if I hadn't gone away to college I still wouldn't know how to use a laundromat, I still wouldn't own a wallet, and I wouldn't know how much milk costs.

(ok, we'll be honest. i still don't know how much milk costs. i haven't bought it yet. i don't drink it that much. but i know i'm a grown up because i have a wallet and keys.)

What takes more time to explain is that, cliched as it sounds, I'm curious about me.

I mean, I've been living with me for eighteen years, I kind of want to get to know me a little better. You know how you'll know someone for years, at school maybe, and then when you see them somewhere else they're totally different? I thought I'd pull myself out of the context of my life and see what I was like without it. Silly of course. I haven't left behind my context at all. I find myself giving it no matter who I'm talking to. "Back home..." "In Hawaii..." "Where I grew up..."

I thought I was escaping the labels and expectations of everyone who knew me since I was six. Everyone who sat in sunday school with me and said, "she's haole," or "smart," or "weird." I thought once I was away from all of that something would blossom in my stomach and vola! Look! So that's who I was all along. Who knew?

Actually, even thousands of miles away from my context, I'm terrified of setting it down. Because who am I without it? I'm self-imposing all those expectations on myself now and I don't even have my sunday-school mates to blame for it.

This is not where I was planning on this post going. I wasn't going to really delve into identity. (though i do have a question: is there a healthy thing to base your identity on? honestly? if i think of myself as smart and then i am disillusioned out of this and just crushed, or if it stops me from doing things i'm bad at because that makes me seem less smart, then that isn't healthy. but isn't that true about basing your identity on anything and making any judgments about yourself? now i'm just confused...) I was actually going to note a few things that I've figure out about me. 

Of course they're comparative. You see, you thought I'd entirely forgot that I'd opened with my adjective thing didn't you? Nope, see, I was going somewhere for once. I know. Weird. So, from living with people who aren't my family I've come to some (comparative) conclusions about me. Nothing real earth-shaking.

I'm actually pretty clean. I don't take any responsibility for this. I think it's my mom's handy work and is probably a bit over the top right now as I try to prove to myself that where I am living is actually my home. But still. I have compulsions to do the dishes, clean the bathroom, etc. These are compulsions that my roommates do not have and do not understand. I'm mostly cool with that, but I wish they'd let me do it. I don't need them to do their dishes, I just need their dishes done. I'm good with cleaning them, but for some reason they haven't really borded that train of thought.

I go sleep early. Really. I'm going to sleep later than I used to and I still go to bed early. Yesterday was eleven thirty-ish because I had a paper due today. It felt late then and this morning it really felt late. But try complaining about a eleven-thirty bedtime to college students. See if you get away without a social stoning. I haven't really decided what I think this says about me... but I thought I'd share it. So if you happen to be my floor mate who keeps playing the ukulele at obscene hours of the morning, take pity on the poor socially awkward girl who lives across from you and stop. Or at least learn a different song.

I am socially awkward. Which does seem sort of fundamentally unfair. I shouldn't have to be physically and socially awkward. I really must have been at the back of the line when the stars were passing out skills. Because I'm a self-justifying person, though, I have come up with a perfectly plausible reason for why I'm socially awkward. The meeting new people part is because I've lived in a tiny town my whole life, so even people I didn't know knew me. Now I'm in a place where no one knows me... and I don't know what to do. Do I just walk up to people and say, "Hey. I'm Marissa. I'm a socially awkward Asian Studies major, looking for a job and craving sugar?"

Not really, right? There is some secret to this whole meeting people thing that I am just yet to discover. Right? Like a secret password.

... Hey, guys. Now would be a great time to let me in on the secret. Just saying.

I actually have a lot to tell you. Like I bought bubbles because I decided that I couldn't live without them. And I was walking back from blowing them on Sunday and got invited in by people I'd met that day ("hey. i'm marissa....") to eat a muffin. Which was fun. I felt intimidated though, because they were talking about politics. And I know nothing about politics. I do, however, know a lot about China, and I got into a heated discussion with a Pakistani in my ward about it. I met him, told him what I studies ("i'm a socially awkward asian studies major..."), and he leaned forward said, "Do you think Mao was a good leader?" We argued about it for twenty minutes, until he had to go talk to the Bishop.

My father has mandated that my entire family will eat sugar only once a week (with the exception of holidays recognized by hallmark) and it works well. Most of the time. Everyone once in a while I just really.... need... ICECREAM. ("looking for a job and craving sugar...") Tomorrow will be my once a week, though. I'm going to go get frozen yogurt. As a treat for me doing a whole half of the things I was supposed to this week. Because I'm responsible like that.

Over.